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“You can't get any wetter than you are now. Anyway, you walk wrong for rain.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You go all hunched up, you fight it, that's not the way. You shouldwell, move between the drops.” And, indeed, Granny seemed to be merely damp.
“I'll bear that in mind. Come on, madam. It's me for a roaring fire and a glass of something hot and wicked.”
Granny sighed. “I don't know. Somehow I expected to see it sticking out of the mud, or something. Not just all this water.”
Cutangle patted her gently on the shoulder.
“There may be something else we can do -” he began, and was interrupted by a zip of lightning and another roll of thunder.
“I said maybe there's something -” he began again.
“What was that I saw?” demanded Granny.
“What was what?” said Cutangle, bewildered.
“Give me some light!”
The wizard sighed wetly, and extended a hand. A bolt of golden fire shot out across the foaming water and hissed into oblivion.
“There!” said Granny triumphantly.
“It's just a boat,” said Cutangle. “The boys use them in the summer -”
He waded after Granny's determined figure as fast as he could.
“You can't be thinking of taking it out on a night like this,” he said. “It's madness!”
Granny slithered along the wet planking of the jetty, which was already nearly under water.
“You don't know anything about boats!” Cutangle protested.
“I shall have to learn quickly, then,” replied Granny calmly.
“But I haven't been in a boat since I was a boy!”
“I wasn't actually asking you to come. Does the pointy bit go in front?”
Cutangle moaned.
“This is all very creditable,” he said, “but perhaps we can wait till morning?”
A flash of lightning illuminated Granny's face.
“Perhaps not,” Cutangle conceded. He lumbered along the jetty and pulled the little rowing boat towards him. Getting in was a matter of luck but he managed it eventually, fumbling with the painter in the darkness.
The boat swung out into the flood and was carried away, spinning slowly.
Granny clung to the seat as it rocked in the turbulent waters, and looked expectantly at Cutangle through the murk.
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?” said Cutangle.
“You said you knew all about boats.”
